TALBOT: Sustainable Solutions to Significant Water Challenges

Established in 1989, Talbot’s purpose is threefold: to help clients understand and mitigate their water risks, effect water-related savings and enhance business sustainability – from the analysis and assessment of water use to the design, implementation, construction and management of bespoke solutions.

“Our collective experience provides our clients with the assurance of insight, innovation and quality,” Talbot outlines. “By integrating expertise from our engineers, scientists and technicians, we deliver a range of innovative, yet robust solutions across a broad range of industries. We have over 30 years’ experience, enabling delivery projects in more than 20 countries in Africa, Australia and Eastern Europe.

“We are committed to providing practical sustainable solutions to address the water related challenges for our clients.”

WATER NET ZERO

“Talbot began in a garage, offering laboratory services – specifically water analysis and then moved quickly into the wastewater space and became a continent-wide player,” CEO Carl Haycock says of the humble beginnings which have paved the way for a rapid evolution to an over 200-person-strong outfit.

Talbot’s suite of capabilities is made possible by the confluence of a number of integrated, complementary services including data and analytics, strategic and operational water advice across industry sectors as well as the design and turnkey construction of water, wastewater treatment and water recovery facilities for blue chip clients across the continent. 

Further support is provided to clients through the provision of total water management and optimisation services, encompassing water, wastewater and water recovery across the full production cycle. While Talbot’s commercial environmental laboratory offers a full range of microbiological, organic and inorganic environmental analytical services having established itself as one of Africa’s premier environmental laboratories.

With focus sectors such as FMCG, food and beverage, agri-processing, industrial and mining, Talbot offers everything from strategic consulting, technical assessments and feasibility studies to plant design and build services, operational support and environmental laboratory services. 

Haycock is firmly of the view that it is the combination of Talbot’s individual elements that give it the edge. “Most sustainability companies don’t have the same level of access to data and deep technical knowledge that is built into our strategies,” he says. “We have the strategic and technical teams integrated into the strategy, and then the data feeding into that. Having all this in one company enables us to identify and provide deep support in delivering opportunities for our clients.”

Two of Talbot’s specific current focuses are on water recovery and water security, Haycock elaborates, “key aspects of the relatively new concept in the sustainability space of net zero water.” Long established as a crucial climate target for carbon, net zero is now being built into the water industry, he explains.

“Previously, companies had been striving for zero liquid discharge, but now it is much more about reducing water consumption, by a percentage, and improving water recovery with less discharge into the environment. Like carbon, companies are looking to offsets to improve this even further.” Haycock goes on. “South Africa is a water-scarce country, as is a lot of Africa. Much of our long-standing water optimisation work relates to reducing consumption and improving efficiencies in processes and plants. This brings a knock-on effect of reduced costs, but also at a sustainability level, there is the opportunity to reduce demand on the supply.

“The grounding that we have in water scarcity is something which is completely exportable and we are driving that into the international market right now.”

TALBOTANALYTICS

Talbot’s water security specialism works hand-in-hand with another of its major current concerns. “We are evolving fast a business, and intentionally so,” Haycock continues, “and have developed TalbotAnalytics, a digital Software as a Service (SaaS) platform specifically focused on water and its optimisation, giving total water management.”

Its applications relate to anything from water quality, consumption and recycling rates to cutting plant chemical costs and monitoring operator performance against standard operating procedures.

“It is geared specifically towards private sector clients in the likes of mining and agri-industries, FMCG and other larger water users and essentially automatically optimises processes associated with water.” The digital, cloud-based water management application enables big water users to access and interpret big data in real-time, anywhere in the world.

“By using water data properly,” Haycock elaborates, “opportunities to achieve efficiencies of anything up to 35% quickly emerge, some of which is simply from behavioural change. It is developing very quickly, and is an international pursuit; we have so far engaged China, Europe and the US, and currently there is no product like it globally – the feedback we have had is that it is a truly unique offering.

“Its software allows it to be delivered anywhere in the world and, working with international partners with an interest in South Africa and its companies, is a key part of our strategy.

“Big water data is big,” furthers Talbot Strategic Director, Helen Hulett. “It’s constantly changing, complex and comes from various sources. It’s also stored in different places so pulling it all together to make informed decisions is a science in itself. TalbotAnalytics acts as a single repository to enable users to visualise and interpret their data and enable more insightful and strategic business decisions.”

ASPIRING LEADER

There is so much to set Talbot apart as a global leader. “We are a very diverse business,” says Haycock, “a truly South African enterprise with every culture and heritage represented within the organisation. We are more than 70% female at a leadership level and just under 50% across the entire business. This, I believe, adds real value to the business, allowing us to engage with different people, backgrounds and cultures much more easily and naturally compared to most other South African players in this sphere.”

It has allowed Talbot to continue growing and diversifying even amid the trying business conditions that Haycock describes over the last 18 months. “There was almost a complete hiatus in spending on future investment in strategy and equipment. Nobody was prepared commit capital to projects,” he outlines.

Nonetheless, Talbot was able to come to the rescue of a leading Highveld coal producer in the removal of gypsum from its waste stream to free up capacity at a downstream dam. The efficacy of Talbot’s solution was proven on site during live operations through pilot testing, and delivered impressive results, reducing waste solids from around 2,900 mg/l to just 84 mg/l.

“Dealing with sludges and waste streams, typically with high suspended loads, is often required to provide a total water management solution and is viewed as being both a complex and expensive process,” Haycock delineates, “but this needn’t be the case.”

Also in 2020, Talbot installed the first Econvert Eco Digester on the African continent, technology to which it has the exclusive rights across Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands. The Eco Digester offers beverage producers, breweries, distilleries, food processors, dairies, sugar and pulp mills a cost-effective way of enhancing water and energy recovery and use, and by using an AD system, production facilities can generate biogas to utilise renewable energy in their processes.

Haycock is unambiguous in his assessment of how far this expertise-led, technology-enabled and dynamic approach can take the business. “We firmly believe that Talbot Analytics can conquer internationally, and this forms a large part of our growth ambitions,” he wraps up. “Water recovery, though, is essential to our success not only as a business, but as human beings, and we are going to drive this area incredibly hard moving forward.

“As a business we are ambitious, and we have the team in place to allow Talbot to become be the leading provider of sustainable water and wastewater solutions across the African continent.”